Enhancing risk communication through storytelling: the power of hero narratives in facilitating public disaster preparedness

We based on the Narrative Policy Framework (NPF) and examined the advantages of narrative risk communication that includes hero characters in promoting public disaster preparedness behavioral intentions. We further explored whether there are differences in the impact of narrative risk communication on public disaster preparedness behavioral intentions when the government or the public is portrayed as the hero separately or jointly, and revealed the differences in the mechanisms of the three types of heroic narrative in promoting disaster preparedness. The research results indicate that compared to traditional risk communication, incorporating hero characters narrative risk communication can significantly enhance public disaster preparedness behavioral intentions. Although there is no significant difference in the overall effect of government hero, public hero, and government public co performance heroes, their internal mechanisms have their own characteristics. Government hero promotes disaster preparedness behavioral intentions by enhancing external efficacy, public hero plays their role by enhancing internal efficacy, and joint heroes can simultaneously stimulate internal and external efficacy. We incorporate an emotion-driven NPF into emergency management research on typhoon preparedness and demonstrate that, compared with traditional rational risk communication, hero character policy narratives have distinct advantages in enhancing risk communication effectiveness. Our study not only extends the NPF application scope and explanatory power in the field of risk communication, but also provides new theoretical perspectives and research avenues for improving pre-disaster communication between governments and the public.